Antonia Fraser's style and research are, as always, impeccable. She brings clarity to a big, confusing topic. (How many people in one family can be named Maria? Louis?)
If I have one reservation, it's that I became more and more aware, as I approached the end of this big tome (450+ pages of text, plus the bibliography and index), that Fraser was dialling up the special pleading for Marie Antoinette. Again and again, there were phrases like this: "People assumed that she was [arrogant, spendthrift, clueless, plotting against France], when it was obvious that [insert more innocent interpretation, with little or no evidence]." I think Fraser succumbed to a version of Stockholm Syndrome unique to biographers of Big Historical Personalities: she had fallen in love with her subject, and felt that she needed to defend her against all comers.
Fraser does a very effective job debunking the worst myths about MA, with convincing evidence. (She did not say "Let them eat cake." Repeat after me, she did not say ...) It's when the evidence runs out, and Fraser falls back on "it's obvious" that I had some hesitations about her bias.
Interesting "nothing new under the sun" moment: we didn't invent "fake news," and the poisonous effect of social media. According to the political pamphlets of the day (their equivalent of Facebook?), besides saying that starving peasants should eat cake, MA was a sexual predator, who corrupted everyone around her (including her own 8 year old son), a drunkard (she was actually teetotal all of her life), and a monster who wanted to bathe in French blood. Or, as Fraser puts it: "It all had to be true. The stories had, after all, been printed over and over again, repetition being a cynical substitute for veracity." (page 280)
If I have one reservation, it's that I became more and more aware, as I approached the end of this big tome (450+ pages of text, plus the bibliography and index), that Fraser was dialling up the special pleading for Marie Antoinette. Again and again, there were phrases like this: "People assumed that she was [arrogant, spendthrift, clueless, plotting against France], when it was obvious that [insert more innocent interpretation, with little or no evidence]." I think Fraser succumbed to a version of Stockholm Syndrome unique to biographers of Big Historical Personalities: she had fallen in love with her subject, and felt that she needed to defend her against all comers.
Fraser does a very effective job debunking the worst myths about MA, with convincing evidence. (She did not say "Let them eat cake." Repeat after me, she did not say ...) It's when the evidence runs out, and Fraser falls back on "it's obvious" that I had some hesitations about her bias.
Interesting "nothing new under the sun" moment: we didn't invent "fake news," and the poisonous effect of social media. According to the political pamphlets of the day (their equivalent of Facebook?), besides saying that starving peasants should eat cake, MA was a sexual predator, who corrupted everyone around her (including her own 8 year old son), a drunkard (she was actually teetotal all of her life), and a monster who wanted to bathe in French blood. Or, as Fraser puts it: "It all had to be true. The stories had, after all, been printed over and over again, repetition being a cynical substitute for veracity." (page 280)
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